Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has admitted pushing to resign Cristiano Ronaldo whilst with Manchester United turned out to be the wrong decision.
The 51-year-old oversaw Ronaldo’s return to Old Trafford back in 2021, only for the former Real Madrid superstar to leave the club in dramatic fashion, just 22 months later.
Solskjaer, then manager of the Red Devils, has revealed he regrets agreeing to sanction a deal, given the hinderance it had on United’s younger players.
“When it became apparent that he was leaving Juventus, obviously there were other clubs that wanted him – but I was excited. They [United] asked me, ‘Would you want us to try this?’.
“I said yes – obviously we know Cristiano is quality, and he’s 37, but we have to manage – he’s the best goal scorer in the world. It didn’t work out for me, it didn’t work out for Cristiano, but it was the right decision at the time.”
United initially flew out of the traps recording a 4-1 win over Newcastle United at the Theatre of Dreams, but it was only soon after that cracks started to appear.
Cristiano Ronaldo in action for Manchester United against Rayo Vallecano in pre-season.
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“We started off straight away thinking how we are going to press and change the little tweaks,” added the former Molde boss.
“Cristiano is different to Antony Martial who was up front, or whether we would play Mason [Greenwood] or Marcus [Rashford] up front.
“Edinson Cavani was the one that suffered the most when Cristiano came in – we’d played and got Edinson into a certain way of understanding the way we played.
“Cristiano – when you know him and speak to him, he wanted to play three out of four games, he realised he’s getting older as well. But when you leave him out once, he’s not happy!
“With the ball, with him in the team, it was no problem. Without him [pressing], we had to change a little bit the different roles we’d gotten used to. We were one of the highest pressing teams before [Ronaldo joined].
“We let Dan James go when Cristiano came in, and they’re two different types of players. It was the right decision to make for me – it didn’t turn out to be the right one.”
